What is the Manchester United Supporters' Trust?
In 1998 Rupert Murdoch tried to buy Manchester United, we formed as a shareholder group [Shareholders United] - we had 35,000 private shareholders, most weren't in it for the money. They wanted to be able to go to AGMs and have their say. We fought alongside the independent supporters association to pressure the Government to refer the bid to the Office of Fair Trading. It was a great victory when the bid was knocked back, but we recognised that Murdoch was not the only guy in town.
At the same time people were talking about starting Supporters Direct - a national umbrella organisation to help trusts get off the ground - and we became a supporters trust. We were banging our head against a brick wall with the club, but as the threat from the Glazers - and before that the Irish shareholders - began to mount the club realised the only people who were going to be on their side were the supporters. They started a dialogue with us about growing the trust and increasing the block of shares in the hands of people who would never sell, no matter what the price. Sadly that process started too late so we only ended up with 17 per cent - some in the trust, some in individual shareholders. Once Malcolm Glazer had 75 per cent that was the magic number for him to be able to take control and dump all of the debt onto Manchester United. If we had the club's support a year earlier we could have got there.
What happened once the Glazers had bought the club?
We found ourselves with a membership of 30,000, all of whom had to sell their shares to Glazer. We knew that given how much debt was involved in the deal there would come a point where their finances would unravel or they would seek to sell for profit. We wanted to be there to build a credible organisation to step in. We now find ourselves with the green and gold campaign. We were saying how bad the Glazers debt was and everyone said 'well you would say that wouldn't you, you've always hated them'. But they had to come out with their bond document to say how bad it was. On the back of that we managed to get a group of wealthy supporters who were willing to go in with us to buy the club - the Red Knights.
They wanted to do it with supporters - our membership exploded when we asked to prove they were up for this by joining, and we went to 160,000 members. We said it may be a crazy idea but let's try wearing green and gold. Everyone sees it's a nice visible protest, with David Beckham wearing the scarf, and asks if that is it? We started selling scarves at cost price and all of a sudden the swag men outside the ground were selling them too, once they start selling it you know you've caught a mood. The club said it was a vocal minority, then suddenly it was everywhere in the ground. They started to change their tact, we even had Sir Alex Ferguson saying he didn't care what people wore so long as they supported the team. That's the best thing about it, it's not divisive - you could still support the team. That's where the Love United, Hate Glazer phrase came.
Why would MUST/Red Knights be better owners than the Glazer family?
When we talk about supporter ownership it is not about the fans running the club day-to-day. It's not about picking the team or having a vote to sack the manager. We want an executive running the club, but if you have supporters as owners setting the parameters then you can change things. One of the reasons we set off as a shareholder organisation was the PLC had a legal duty to do things in the interest of shareholders first, then fans and community afterwards.
We thought that if we remove that barrier, make the fans the owners, then they can carry on what they were doing but would have a legal duty to do what we wanted. In effect we are still taking about the same thing, we would have an executive there but they would know who their bosses were. It would be about having safeguards there to prevent it being sold on to undesirable people, prevent extortionate debt and regulate ticket prices so they are sustainable. We are interested in the long-term good of the club. We felt the Glazers were bleeding the club dry, ticket prices in some cases are 50 per cent higher than they were. None of the money is being reinvested in the team, the Glazers have wasted £437million in interest payments and fees. Even with these ticket prices they have only taken in £398m, so in effect all our ticket money has been completely wasted. That makes people angry.
Would you continue to push for supporter ownership if the Glazers sold to someone other than the Red Knights?
We were never against the Glazers per se, but they were coming in with debt. One of the reasons we were against their takeover was because it got in the way of our takeover. We were pushing towards a supporter ownership model and someone coming in got in the way, the same applies to any new owner. We see the benefits of supporter ownership being unsurpassed. Chelsea fans love Roman Abramovich - the club was in serious trouble and he invested money. I can understand why Chelsea fans like that, but they are reliant on the whims of one owner. He could decide that he is done with football and go and buy another yacht, and we don't think that is particularly beneficial. The most financially stable model is where supporters, the customers, are owners. Then you see there is not a 'them and us' division. If you had the bigger clubs with supporters at their heart then you could start to affect governance - the Premier League and Football League are members organisations, so do what they are told by their clubs. If enough clubs are owned by supporters we can change the values - whether that be ticket prices, TV deals, kick-off times or safe standing. For years people have said it's all well and good for the small clubs but not at bigger clubs, but we point to people like Barcelona and say how successful they are.
Are the Red Knights still around?
When they went public in March we said this would take some time and were only going to do it at the right price. We were not going to overpay: Manchester United have some serious challenges. We have to pay down the debt, get ticket prices back under control. They bought the club five years ago for £800m when there had been significant investment in the team, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney.
They've alienated customers and loaded us with debt, so why do they now want £1.5billion? That's crazy, where is the added value? There isn't any. They've already taken out £437m. So take what we would be willing to pay, say £800m or £1bn and add on the money they've already wasted and they're nearer the £1.5bn, The important thing is to only have one option for them, it's not like they can go into an auction between other people and us. What we are trying to put in place won't be for five years it will be for 100. We are prepared to wait and make sure we get it right.